


Recoil

by WhoopsOK



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, Edgeplay, Guns, Kinktober, Kinky Gen, M/M, Mindfuck, Self-Esteem Issues, Simulated Murder, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 00:35:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12331959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoopsOK/pseuds/WhoopsOK
Summary: “You wouldn’t kill me.”The pause that follows is heavy and John doesn’t know what to make of it until Harold says, “Is that the problem?”(John has never really had a sense of self-preservation, but especially not in regards to Harold.)





	Recoil

**Author's Note:**

> Oct. 10, gun ~~play~~ , maybe edge play?  
> [Hanging up a sign for the “Insomniac Writers Club” meetup] Oh, howdy!
> 
> Another fic that’s less kink and more mindfuckery. Warning for simulated murder, a simulated suicide threat, and a kink(?) scene occurring in a Not Great headspace. If you think some tags/warnings should be added, feel free to say!
> 
> This… probably counts as OOC because Finch would _never_ , but… here we go anyway.

John’s knees hit the ground almost the second after he registers Harold has asked him to kneel, as if it wasn’t even a conscious decision and, to be quite honest, he isn’t entirely sure it was. It’s like his body decided he needs to be on the floor right now, trusts Harold to make that decision without even thinking about it. Once he’s down, it feels like standing would take more effort than he can give, especially if Finch doesn’t want him on his feet. He waits patiently, silently, for Harold to stand and make his way over.

For a moment, it seems like he doesn’t quite know what to say. John hasn’t been in to see him personally in almost a week, mostly intentionally. He knows this is going to be the “unnecessary risks” discussion, because he always gets the “unnecessary risks” discussion. For as much as he may love and respect Harold, they do have completely different definitions of “risk” and “unnecessary”. He’s ready for this, in the way he’s ready to face down any other unpleasant thing, because this is what he does.

John Reese regularly faces unpleasant circumstances for his dedication to Harold Finch and will gladly continue to do so.

Something of it must show on his face before he lowers his gaze to the floor, though, because Harold pauses, sighing heavily. “Must this be a fight?”

“You hired me for a reason, Finch,” John reminds him blithely, a thin smile on his face. “You’re not returning me to sender are you?” It’s meant to be a joke, because of course Harold isn’t, _wouldn’t_ , but for some reason it puts an extra layer of tension in Harold’s stance. John doesn’t even need to look up to see his frown.

“Is that what you want?” Harold answers, in a tone that almost passes for bland.

John knows the answer instantly, but still pauses. “…I think you know that it’s not.”

“Do I? You appear to desire to be treated the same way,” Harold replies, still standing too far away for John’s liking, the distance like a physical presence between them. “A disposable asset, meant to be broken and abused? _Killed_ if necessary?”

John almost points out that he was broken well before Harold got to him, but that is a different conversation and he’s in enough deep water to not want to cross streams. “You wouldn’t kill me.”

The pause that follows is heavy and John doesn’t know what to make of it until Harold says, “Is that the problem?”

John doesn’t quite freeze – he already wasn’t moving – but he feels his entire body tense. “What are you asking?” he asks, dread and confusion making a mess of his heart beat.

When Harold passes behind him, he has to remind himself – and the hairs that stand up on the back of his neck – that this is _Harold_. The man who rescued him in the first place, in more ways than one, and is on a personal one man mission to prove that John is not nor has he ever been expendable. Harold can be trusted behind his back. John doesn’t turn, even when he tracks the sound of Harold’s gait over to the closet door, muffled as he goes inside. Unless Harold has intentionally stored something in with John’s things, John can’t imagine why—

Harold returns to him slower than when he’d left, as though each step is deliberate and thought out. John keeps his gaze carefully down past his knees, but much like his instincts tell him to obey Finch, his training tells him to never lose sight of any weapons in a room, no matter who’s holding them.

These two things conflict when, out of the corner of his eyes, he sees his Desert Eagle in Harold’s hand.

Finch wouldn’t.

“Look at me, John,” Harold says in a way that isn’t quite gentle, but definitely too kind to be an overt threat.

John looks up, doesn’t move otherwise. He could take the weapon comically easily from Finch’s loose grip, his open stance – it isn’t even pointed at him.

“Are you going to disarm me?” Harold asks like he heard the thought, motioning with the gun.

“No,” John answers. He isn’t afraid. The cold sweat on his back and the pounding of his heart are lying to him, he isn’t afraid. Harold wouldn’t.

“No,” Harold parrots, then lifts the gun to the center of John’s forehead, finger hovering over the trigger. “Why?”

John doesn’t even flinch, but he doesn’t answer either. He doesn’t have to, Harold wouldn’t hurt him, let alone kill him _._ The gun probably isn’t even loaded – _his training is screaming at him that there’s no such thing as ‘probably not loaded’ when a gun is pointed at you, there’s a riot in his head._

Harold looks at him thoughtfully. “If I told you to open your mouth?”

John has tasted gun metal before and – _Harold wouldn’t do half the things those men had asked of him_ – isn’t afraid to do so again. He opens his mouth, never once breaking eye contact with Harold. Harold is the squeamish one, the one who jumps at gunshots and tries to avoid all manner of violence. John can out pace him in whatever this exercise is, even if he feels like his ribs are shrinking around his lungs.

When the barrel of the gun lands on his tongue, it’s like a shock to the system. He feels himself salivating, the finest of tremors radiating out of his core, but he keeps his mouth open, keeps still. This isn’t danger. Harold terrifies John, but not like this, Harold isn’t going to—

The safety clicks off and takes some part of John’s mind with it.

Harold’s eyes are bright with something like horror, John can’t tell who towards. “If I wanted to shoot you?” he asks, pressing the gun further into John’s mouth, far enough back that John starts to feel the urge to gag. “What then, John? Would you let me kill you?”

It’s a distressingly easy answer. John Reese is going to die for Harold Finch. From the moment John joined this mission, he was content to die for it and that never even accounted for falling in love. If John is going to die, it’s going to be for Harold. In his wildest nightmares, he’s never imagined it being at Harold’s hand, but if that’s what has to be done… he can’t say he wouldn’t… he isn’t sure he’d stop—

John’s whole body flinches when the gun clicks in his mouth, _empty_. The relief he feels nearly doesn’t feel like relief at all, it’s so stifling John can barely breathe around it.  He _knew_ Harold wouldn’t, but the physical manifestation of that is so visceral his throat feels like it’s closing around the knowledge. His vision goes blurry.

“That John Reese is dead,” Harold hisses, voice shaking. _Click!_ “He’s dead and I killed him.” _Click! Click! Click!_

The gun doesn’t recoil, but John does; every word, every click, John is undone.

It feels almost like a surprise when the gun slides out of his mouth, as though that were just where it was meant to be. Harold had placed it there, John would accept that. When he’s left drooling and empty, he doesn’t know what to do, how to breathe with that much free space. Finch is moving, John registers, but it takes him two seconds longer than it should have to realize where the gun is going.

“ _No,_ ” John says. He doesn’t remember moving, but his hand is clasped around Harold’s wrist, too tight, _painfully_ tight, but he can’t let go.

That gun is not getting pointed at Finch’s head, not even unloaded, _no._

Finch doesn’t tug away. “Why?”

“ _Harold._ ”

“ _Why?_ ”

“I don’t want you to die,” John answers. _You don’t deserve to die_ , is right on his tongue after that, but it doesn’t matter. Even if Harold did, John wouldn’t – wouldn’t let Harold either.

“Don’t you?” Harold says softly and it hurts John to the depths of his soul that Harold could have ever doubted that.

“Of course not,” he says and doesn’t say ‘ _I love you_ ’, not because it isn’t true, but because that isn’t the point. He’s missing something here. “You know I don’t, Harold.”

Harold takes in a sharp breath, the first visages of true distress marring his face. “Well, _you_ are an extension of _me_. My arms, my legs, my _heart_ , John, for as much as you want to _protect_ me, you continually—” he closes his eyes for a moment, taking an unsteady breath. When he opens them again, John sees a bit of Wren in Finch’s gaze, his stomach swooping dizzily. He stops breathing when Harold pulls out of his grasp and rests the gun against John’s throat. “Stop _mutilating_ me.”

John goes cold. “I never—”

“Yes, yes you do,” Harold says. “While I am loathed to send you out to be hurt, I know that is part of your job, the mission we’ve taken on.” He drops the gun, the sound of it clattering heavily to the floor making John feel as gouged as the hardwood. “But I cannot abide your tendency to take on additional needless suffering, John. Not on my behalf or anyone else’s.”

Small and hunched is not the real Harold Finch, not the one John knows. He hates the weight that has settled over his lover so thoroughly, drawing his mouth and brow into a curve to match his shoulders. “ _Harold_ …” he gasps.

“You want to protect me?” Harold says, looking away, “Honestly, truly protect me, beyond what the mission requires?”

“That’s all I want, Harold,” John admits softly. His mouth tastes like metal and he thinks, abruptly, he’ll never allow another gun past his lips, not if it feels like this. He reaches and takes Harold’s hand because he has to, he’ll shake apart to nothing if he doesn’t. When Harold looks back at him he looks so tired and in love— _John can’t do this to him again._

“Then please,” Harold says, holding John’s hand, cupping his cheek with the other, “ _Please_ , beloved, treat yourself at least that well.” His hands shake as he pulls John’s face against his stomach, “You are a treasured piece of me and I am entirely unwilling to lose you, John.”

That makes John feel horrendously overvalued, but in the moment following when he closes his arms around Harold, breathes in his scent, he decides his doubt doesn’t matter. It’s feeling versus reality. Harold believes it to be true and will treat it as fact, willingly bearing all risk involved in keeping him.

If John has to circumvent those risks by treating himself like a valuable, well…

He isn’t willing to shy away from that mission, either.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading…take care of your injured bits and be kind today, ok?
> 
> (Unsexy reminders: There’s no such thing as “play” when guns are involved.)


End file.
